


Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

by hmweasley



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Autistic Katniss Everdeen, Banned Together Bingo, Beyond Panem Discord's Opening Event, F/M, Minor Gale Hawthorne/Johanna Mason, One-sided Katniss Everdeen/Gale Hawthorne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27401224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/pseuds/hmweasley
Summary: When a potion explodes in Katniss' face, Professor Sae determines that the only way she will pass the class is if she receives some tutoring from the number one Potions student in their year: Peeta Mellark.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen & Gale Hawthorne, Katniss Everdeen & Johanna Mason, Katniss Everdeen & Primrose Everdeen, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 69
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts:  
> Banned Together Bingo - witchcraft  
> Beyond Panem's Opening Event - Defense/Masonry
> 
> The thought process behind this fitting the "defense" prompt was the walls Katniss has up between herself and everyone else during the story. I'm really up for people being as creative as they want with the prompts for this.
> 
> The Beyond Panem event is for a Hunger Games Discord server that I started by the way. If anyone's interested in joining, you can [here](https://discord.gg/KqKYFw8jdB).

A familiar sense of irritation nudged at Katniss as she stared into the light pink surface of her potion. It was supposed to be turning a light lavender shade, but even as the potions of everyone else around her did, Katniss’ remained undeniably pink. Clenching her jaw, she added the crushed beetle wings anyway. What was the worst that could happen?

After five years of Potions, she should have known better. The potion bubbled dangerously the second the wings hit its surface. 

Katniss took several swift steps backward and raised her arms to protect her face a split second before the potion exploded. 

It went high but didn’t spread around the room, leaving Katniss the only one coated in the pink goop. Professor Sae gave a shout as she hurried over as fast as her elderly legs would carry her.

“You were supposed to wait until it was lavender!” she scolded even as she waved her wand over Katniss to stop the incessant burning at her skin.

Katniss didn’t pay Sae much attention as she inspected her arms. Her robes were ruined, but at least her skin seemed undamaged after Sae’s spells. There didn’t seem to be any lasting consequences to her error. And Sae would let her off easier than most of the other professors would. Sae’s leniency was the only reason Katniss had been let into NEWT-level Potions despite her score on her OWLs.

“I’m okay,” she said, as if her protests would be enough to stop the professor from inspecting her arm for more damage.

The elderly woman ignored her, contorting Katniss’ arm into uncomfortable shapes as she searched for places the potion might have landed.

“You’ll need the hospital wing,” she concluded with a tut of her tongue. “But I don’t trust that some of the effects of the potion won’t present themselves before you get there. Someone will need to accompany you in case you faint.”

Katniss frowned at her now almost empty cauldron. Not a single one of her classmates would be interested in that. None of them even sat beside her in class. Not that Katniss blamed them. She made it painfully hard for anyone to be her friend. That was how she preferred things.

“Mr Mellark,” Professor Sae announced, making Katniss cringe. “Would you be so kind as to go with Miss Everdeen?”

Of course Peeta would. He was the kind of nice that Katniss hated because it shouldn’t have existed. Katniss suppressed the memory from first year when he’d brought her some food from the kitchens after she’d been too frightened to eat in the Great Hall. They hadn’t talked before that, and they had hardly spoken since, yet it had been burned into her memory forever.

She tossed a quick glance in his direction as he told the professor yes, but she looked away just as quickly when his bright blue eyes looked her way.

It didn’t matter what Sae wanted. Katniss grabbed her bag, turned on her heel, and hurried from the room before Peeta could catch up to her.

She might have made it the whole way there without him catching up except he was determined to fulfill the duties Sae had given him. Katniss was faster but not willing to complete the journey at an all out run, which would make her fear too obvious. Peeta was huffing by the time he reached her side, but Katniss kept her gaze straight forward and didn’t slow down.

Peeta didn’t act bothered. He walked by her side in a silence that few people could stomach. Even Gale sometimes got onto her about it, goading her into conversation that she didn’t want to participate in.

The time it took to reach the Hospital Wing felt agonizingly long, yet neither of them had spoken a word. Katniss paused outside the door, unsure what to do next. There was no way Peeta was waiting inside with her.

“I’ll be fine from here,” she said. “Thanks.”

She looked at Peeta again, struggling to keep her face neutral as he smiled nervously back.

“Of course,” he said. “I hope you’re alright.”

Katniss gave him a jerk of her head that was meant to be a nod and fled through the doorway, not daring to glance back at the strange boy that always haunted her thoughts.

* * *

“I was fine,” Katniss muttered, stabbing at her roast beef with her fork.

She felt Gale’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look at him. If he was showing any sign of empathy over something that hadn’t been a big deal, then she didn’t want to see it. If it were up to her, everyone would forget the potion incident had even happened in the first place. It wasn’t anything worth talking about it, and she never liked having concern directed her way.

“Really,” she said. “Professor Sae didn’t need to send Peeta Mellark with me to the hospital wing. I was fine.”

She stabbed at her roast beef again. Her cheeks warmed. She hadn’t meant to mention Peeta to Gale because she felt stupidly embarrassed by the whole situation. As if Mellark tagging along had been her doing somehow. As if she’d wanted him to come along.

“Peeta Mellark went with you?” Gale asked.

There was something strange in his voice that made Katniss look at him for the first time since she’d admitted to the potion exploding. He watched her with a frown, but then, she had just told him that a potion exploded in her face. Few people would be smiling after news like that.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Sae thought the potion might have some effects and someone would need to be there if I fainted or something, but everything was fine. It was just awkward. We didn’t even speak to each other or anything.”

Gale let out a noise that was halfway between an agreeing hum and a grunt. Katniss didn’t think much of it as she shoved a piece of potato into her mouth.

“Why Mellark though? Why a Hufflepuff?” Gale asked. “Why not send another Slytherin with you?”

Oh. Katniss hadn’t even thought about that. Gale took the house rivalries with a seriousness that Katniss rolled her eyes at. She didn’t engage much with the other houses, but she didn’t talk to many Slytherins either. The need to always be angry with each other was exhausting more than anything else, but Gale harbored a distrust for the other students that Katniss could at least somewhat understand. The other houses were distant with the Slytherins at best and downright hostile at worst.

“I don’t know,” Katniss said with a shrug. “You’ve never been in a class with him, but he’s just...nice. You know? I don’t know how to describe it, but I guess you could say he’s a stereotypical Hufflepuff, always wanting to help out or whatever. I guess that’s why Sae thought he’d be a good choice.”

“And he just went?” Gale asked, leaning forward as if they were conspiring on something. “Did he say anything to you? He may be nice, but surely he wasn’t happy to be helping out a Slytherin. He’s always been comfortable in his little Hufflepuff clique, hasn’t he?”

Katniss rolled her eyes.

“He hardly said anything at all,” she said. “But I don’t think he was annoyed. It was just awkward, not hostile or anything. Not everyone hates Slytherins these days, Gale. I don’t think Mellark is even capable of being rude. He’s too nice.”

Katniss wrinkled her nose with the last word. It was true. The niceness was what made her so uneasy around Peeta. He was often polite and considerate to the point that Katniss would assume it was manipulation or a front, but instead of the truth being revealed, he just continued to be nice. Frankly, all of the Hufflepuffs made her uneasy compared to the other houses, with the one exception of her sister. No one put her at as much unease as Peeta though.

“I don’t believe that,” Gale said, crossing his arms on top of the table. Half of his dinner was still uneaten. “No one helps a Slytherin without getting a jab in, and no one’s just nice all the time. What’s going on with Mellark?”

Katniss rolled her eyes.

“What does it even matter?” she snapped a little too forcefully.

The last thing she wanted was to spend their whole dinner talking about Peeta. She cast a quick glance at the Hufflepuff table, worried that he might appear out of nowhere and wonder why they were discussing him.

“It’s over now,” she said. “And nothing happened. Can we please talk about something else?”

Gale nodded, but they didn’t actually talk about much of anything for the rest of dinner. The meal was instead spent in silence. As they left the hall, Katniss noticed Gale toss a quick glare at the Hufflepuff table, but she refused to acknowledge it. If things went her way, everyone would forget soon enough.

* * *

In the next Potions class, Katniss was especially careful. Two trips to the hospital wing in a row would be too much damage to her grade. That increased her usually lackluster desire to make something semi-presentable for Professor Sae.

She managed okay. Her potion was a shade paler than the others when she sat it on Sae’s desk, but it was at least orange like it was supposed to be. And it hadn’t bubbled dangerously in her cauldron as she brewed it, only simmered like it was meant to. There would be no awkward interactions with Mellark if she could help it.

Just as she was storing her Potions book back in her bag, however, Professor Sae called for her from across the classroom.

“Miss Everdeen and Mr Mellark, please stay behind for a moment please.”

Katniss froze, her book still in her hand. What could Sae want? She’d followed the instructions that day to a tee, and back in the hospital wing, Aurelius had said he would assure Sae that Katniss hadn’t had any lingering adverse reactions to the potion. There was no reason for Sae to make her stay behind, let alone with Mellark.

She was stiff as the last of the other students filed out of the classroom. She didn’t look at Peeta as she stalked towards Sae’s desk. Sae was inspecting one of the more vibrant orange vials as her two students approached. She held it up to the light and hummed, seeing something in the way the light reflected off the potion that Katniss couldn’t understand.

“Excellent work today, Mr Mellark,” Professor Sae said with a smile, tilting the vial towards him with an approving nod of her head.

“Thanks,” Peeta muttered, his cheeks pink. He didn’t look at Katniss or even the potion before Sae sat it back on her desk with the others.

Katniss frowned. Her own potion wouldn’t be getting any compliments, and the last thing she wanted was to hear about how great Mellark was at her own worst subject. Had Sae asked her to stay behind just to make her thank Peeta for helping her to the hospital wing or something? It wouldn’t be typical of Sae, but there was a scheming look in her eye as she peered at them from across the desk.

“NEWT-level Potions isn’t a walk in the park,” she said, reclining in her chair as if she’d exhausted her energy during class. “I only accept people who I’m confident can do the work, and I accepted both of you after watching you the last five years. Mr Mellark, you’re a natural at potions. Miss Everdeen, I know the subject is challenging for you, but I truly believe you are capable of becoming quite accomplished with the right support. You have a way of looking at things analytically that is an asset in potion brewing. You just need some extra guidance on how to apply your instincts.”

The back of Katniss’ throat burned, but she kept her face neutral as she looked at Sae. Her jaw was clenched as she struggled not to snap at the elderly teacher. Sae was lenient, but she had a tough streak that appeared when she or her subject were insulted. Though perhaps Katniss wanted to be removed from NEWT-level Potions; taking it felt more and more like a bad decision every day. She hadn’t wanted to be there that badly in the first place.

She didn’t say anything even though Sae seemed to expect a retort of some kind. The old woman picked up Katniss’ vial and held it up for inspection like she had Peeta’s. The difference in them was clear as day. Sae’s own example of the potion from earlier still sat at the front of her desk, highlighting that Peeta’s was nearly identical in appearance.

Not that appearance meant that much in Potions, Katniss reminded herself with an internal roll of her eyes. 

“Mr Mellark, I was wondering if you could help Miss Everdeen do just that.”

“What!?” Katniss snapped before she could stop herself.

She turned to Peeta as if she were going to blame him for their predicament, but something in his wide blue eyes made her pause. He hadn’t been expecting this any more than she had, and that reminder calmed Katniss down just enough to let Sae continue speaking.

“Mr Mellark is the best Potions student in your year, and he’s more than capable of teaching you. He has the patience for it. Miss Everdeen, I’m afraid that it might be the only way you pass otherwise. This isn’t so much advice as it is mandatory remedial work. I think it will be greatly useful to both of you in different ways.”

“I’d be happy to help,” Peeta said quietly, not glancing in Katniss’ direction. His gaze was firmly on the various vials that littered the desk.

“Of course,” Sae said with a smile. “That’s settled then. I’ll talk to Headmaster Undersee and your heads of house to get it onto your schedules.”

Katniss frowned at the image of Professor Abernathy learning about the arrangement, especially when she was one of his best students in Defence.

Sae ignored her as she continued speaking.

“You can, of course, use the Potions classroom. No brewing potions in the library or anything like that. I don’t want Trinket on my back again!”

Katniss shuddered at the thought of the peppy librarian. She didn’t relish the idea of angering her either. She had enough to worry about already.

* * *

Katniss tossed a sharp look at the seventh year Slytherin who was watching them. The girl’s scowl deepened, but she turned away. Katniss didn’t relax as she turned back to Prim and Gale.

Occasionally sitting at the Slytherin table had been Prim’s idea from the moment she arrived at Hogwarts. Katniss hadn’t thought it was a good idea, knowing that it opened Prim up to unfriendly comments from every house, but she enjoyed the time spent with her sister too much to deny her. And Gale, at least, was fond of the younger Hufflepuff too. She was the one exception to his prejudice against the other houses. He listened carefully when she spoke and always had thoughtful responses for her.

Katniss hadn’t been prepared for it when they’d first met, but she’d been thankful. On that particular day, though, when she had the news that she did, she didn’t like that she had to tell them at the same time. Truthfully, she didn’t want to tell either of them at all, but she knew she had to. Sooner or later, they’d find out.

“Professor Sae is making me go to tutoring sessions,” she said, twirling a sausage that she’d speared with her fork around her plate.

“Probably not a bad idea after that potion exploded in your face,” Gale admitted, but when Katniss looked up at him, he gave her a sympathetic smile.

“It’s with Peeta Mellark,” Katniss added, her cheeks warming.

Gale froze with a forkful of mashed potatoes in midair. Prim gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth. She bobbed in her seat, an over enthusiastic response that made Katniss cringe.

“Mellark?” Gale asked just as Prim was opening her own mouth to speak. His brow was furrowed in a frown, and Prim shrunk in at the look despite it not being directed at her. “Why would Sae want him tutoring you? Why can’t she do it herself?”

Katniss shrugged but said, “He’s really good at Potions. Sae says he’s the best student in our year, and apparently he’s cut out for teaching.” She glanced up and sighed at the look on Gale’s face. “That’s what Sae says anyway,” she finished lamely, sticking the sausage in her mouth even though she couldn’t taste much of anything at the moment.

“It’s true,” Prim said, leaning forward with wide eyes that sparkled under the Great Hall’s candles. “Everyone in Hufflepuff goes to Peeta for help on Potions homework, even a lot of the seventh years. He’s really nice, and whenever he explains things, I understand it better than I did when Professor Sae said it. If anyone can help you get better at Potions, Katniss, it’s him!”

Katniss gave Prim a tight smile and wrapped her arm around her shoulders despite how she personally felt about the situation.

Gale swung one leg over the bench.

“I need talk to Mason about a Transfiguration essay,” he muttered before he was gone, leaving a half full plate behind him.

Katniss stabbed at a carrot, one arm still around Prim.

* * *

A drawing of a Mimbulus mimbletonia stared up at Katniss from her textbook as her quill flew over her piece of parchment, describing the plant in minute detail. Unlike Potions—which was, ironically, what most magical plants were used for—Herbology was Katniss’ best subject. It was a fact that was undoubtedly attributable to her father’s own proficiency with the subject. He’d kept a robust garden during Katniss’ childhood and taken her on regular trips through it. It was a place she hadn’t been allowed to explore on her own thanks to the potential danger posed by some of the plants, and she’d relished those trips with her dad, drinking in his every word about the plants he cared for.

She hadn’t realized then how useful it would be at Hogwarts. She hardly had to think as she wrote the Herbology essay, and her wandering mind quickly spotted Johanna Mason when she made a beeline for Katniss from across the Slytherin common room.

Katniss watched her blankly. She didn’t have many friends, and Johanna was one of the few people could kind of count as one. Maybe? Katniss wasn’t actually sure if they were friends exactly, but if someone made her name five friends, she’d have to include Johanna on the list because she had no one else.

Despite kind of being friends, the two girls didn’t typically go out of their way to talk to each other, so Katniss knew to expect something when Johanna pulled out the chair across from her. She wasn’t disappointed.

“I heard Peeta Mellark is tutoring you in Potions,” Johanna said without preamble. She leaned back in the chair, making herself comfortable with her arms crossed against her chest. When Katniss nodded, she laughed. “Sae would set you up with a Hufflepuff like that.”

Katniss rolled her eyes.

“I’d have thought you couldn’t be bothered with that stupid house stuff,” she said.

Johanna shrugged and leaned even farther back. Katniss eyed the chair, half expecting it to tip over backwards and send Johanna flying.

“I don’t care about it. It’s a waste of time to bother with them, but I’m also not singing anyone’s praises. Hufflepuffs have always been a little too sickly sweet for my taste, and Mellark is one of the worst. You’ll get a cavity from spending too much time with him.”

Despite her words, she smirked at Katniss as if her arrangement with Peeta amused her immensely. Katniss sighed and added a sentence to her essay. Johanna was one of those people who she felt perfectly comfortable sitting with in silence, but she felt the older girl’s gaze on her and eventually laid her quill down to give Johanna her full attention.

“He’s not that bad,” she said, not looking the older girl directly in the eye. “Apparently, he helps a bunch of the Hufflepuffs with Potions homework, and I get why. Things make a lot more sense when he explains them. My grade’s already improving. It’s a little...awkward with him, but it’s fine.”

A lot went unsaid. Katniss had no desire to tell Johanna what she had learned over the past month of tutoring sessions. Her and Peeta didn’t have many conversations except about the potions themselves, but unsurprisingly, Peeta wasn’t as accustomed to silence as Katniss was. He’d shared stories about himself that drew Katniss in more than she wanted to admit to him or anyone else. But something on her face must have made Johanna suspicious because she let out a laugh that made Katniss hunch over the table as if she needed to defend herself.

“Be careful, Katniss. Someone who likes to stay invisible like you would have a hell of a time dating a Hufflepuff.”

Katniss’ cheeks burned with fire.

“I’m not going to date anyone,” she snapped. “He’s just helping me with Potions. It’s not… I haven’t even considered anything like that.”

And it was the truth. She liked spending time with Peeta, something which surprised her more than anyone else, but the idea of them having a relationship hadn’t occurred to her as a possibility. There were too many reasons it would be a bad idea.

Johanna shrugged, though she clearly hadn’t been convinced by what Katniss had to say.

“Well, if you do go for it, I suppose I can play my part by keeping Hawthorne out of your hair.”

Katniss frowned in confusion, but Johanna stood and left without offering any kind of explanation. Katniss watched her go, unable to focus on her essay. She knew that Johanna and Gale knew each other, of course, but as far as she was aware, they spoke even less than Katniss and Johanna did. And she wasn’t sure why anyone would need to keep Gale out of her hair if something happened with her and Peeta—which it wouldn’t—anyway.

Shaking her head, she turned back to her essay, allowing herself to be sucked into the world of Mimbulus mimbletonia once more.

* * *

“Why are you still helping me?”

Peeta froze and looked up from his cauldron to stare at Katniss. She stared back, hopefully concealing her own anxiety over the question much better than he was. If the question hadn’t been bothering her for several months at that point, she wouldn’t have dared ask, but Sae hadn’t checked up on them in two months. Katniss’ grades had improved, and she was sure most other tutors would have let their sessions fall to the wayside. He could easily have considered his obligation complete.

Not Peeta. He still scheduled their next session at the end of each current one. He still went over the new potions they learned with her despite the material finally making sense to Katniss in a way it never had before.

Peeta’s cheeks turned the same light shade of pink they sometimes got when he hovered over his hot cauldron for too long. He scratched at the back of his neck and looked down into the simmering orange concoction they’d been working on together.

“I guess I have to say it eventually,” he muttered, more to himself than to Katniss.

Katniss raised an eyebrow, waiting for whatever was about to come poised for the worst. Despite Gale’s comments about their arrangement, she knew Peeta wasn’t about to reveal some cruel joke he’d been playing on her. The fact that his commitment to helping her had come from a genuine place only made it more terrifying anyway.

Peeta looked back at her, determined to look her in the eye while he came clean. Katniss wanted to squirm under the gaze but didn’t turn away.

“I’ve liked you since first year,” he said. “When Sae gave me an opportunity to spend time with you, I couldn’t believe my luck. I didn’t want it to end, so since you kept coming, I kept tutoring you. That probably makes things weird, I know, and I completely get if you want to stop. You’re doing great at Potions now anyway, but yeah… That’s the truth.”

He stared into the potion again, and Katniss took the opportunity to watch him, taking in the features that had become familiar to her over the previous few months. She knew that he stuck his bottom lip between his teeth when he was concentrating his hardest, and he always mouthed numbers to himself whenever he counted anything. She wasn’t sure when she’d become aware of so many small habits, but she had.

“Why me?” she asked, her voice thin. “It’s not like I’m remarkable at all.”

She hardly even had friends, and she kept to herself out of choice. Most people at the school probably couldn’t have given her name if pressed on it. The few that could just knew her as Prim’s sister or the strange girl who Gale hung around with.

“Katniss,” Peeta said with a slight laugh, “you’re the top in our year at both Herbology and Defence. That’s impressive.”

She was? Katniss wasn’t about to admit that she’d never paid attention to the class standings in any subject, so that was news to her. Sure, she enjoyed both subjects. Herbology because of its connection to her father, and Defence because she considered it the most important subject they learned. It hadn’t been that long since a dark wizard had last tried to control the world, and the stories from Katniss’ parents were a strong motivator to do well in that field.

Becoming first in the class, though, was unintentional.

Her sheepish smile must have said as much because Peeta’s laugh grew until Katniss couldn’t help but grin along with him. It didn’t last long. Peeta’s gaze quickly softened.

“But I’ve also seen you with Prim,” he said quietly. “Most Slytherins would disown a relative for being in another house even now, you know? You’re a good person, Katniss. Maybe you’re not a social butterfly, but that doesn’t mean you’re unremarkable.”

“The house rivalries are stupid,” Katniss muttered.

It was easier to cling to the mention of Prim than to acknowledge anything resembling a compliment. She turned back to the plants she was meant to be chopping and was impressed with how steady her hand was when Peeta’s gaze felt like a lead weight pressing against her shoulders.

“I agree,” he said. “But a lot of people in my house still fall for it.”

Katniss nodded, her eyes still on the monkwood.

“They probably don’t like you spending so much time with a Slytherin,” she said.

She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye. If the past few months had taught her something more than potions, it was how to watch him without getting caught.

“It’s not like I care,” Peeta said, taking a step closer and picking up his own knife to give her a hand.

Katniss didn’t say anything more. There were countless things she could have asked, and most probably would have in her position. Peeta had, after all, just admitted to a crush, and Katniss knew that she should have felt distressed by that. She definitely would have several months before. Instead, she felt something else, but was it romantic? It was new, she knew that much, and because of that, she wasn’t sure how to describe it.

In that moment, she did know that she was comfortable standing there with Peeta at her side chopping plants, and for the moment, that was enough.


End file.
